Please note: This website chronicles the CNEs first 100 years and a bit ... but our history continues to evolve, and this website will continue to be expanded and embellished over time, as more decades & images are added! Keep checking back!

Please note: This website chronicles the CNEs first 100 years and a bit ... but our history continues to evolve, and this website will continue to be expanded and embellished over time, as more decades & images are added! Keep checking back!

Innovation

Agricultural Implements Building

The Agricultural Implements Hall was shaped in the form of a cross, one arm 332 and the other 188 feet long. An aisle 16 feet wide ran down the centre of each arm, and on each side of the aisle was a space 22 feet wide for exhibits.

Apparently, the Hall was admirably constructed except for the tower clock, which the Globe reported to be "about as clear as mud." The reporter went on to say, "It seems a queer place to put a clock; though it is perhaps just as well that it will not be noticed much."(The Globe, Sept. 2, 1879)

The Hall featured a device similar to that in use in Machinery Hall — powered shafting. This system consisted of eight lines of shafting which were driven at different angles from eight distinct portable engines. Drums and pulleys were attached to the shafting and the exhibitors' machines were driven by friction belts. Reapers, harvesters and mowers were on view and in motion during the time of the Exhibition.(The Globe, Sept. 2, 1879)

"In the Agricultural Implements Hall there is perhaps more bustle and activity than in any other, except the Main Building (the Crystal Palace). Besides the ordinary machines used in cultivating and gathering the products of the soil there will be a large display of corn shellers, straw cutters, etc. One firm will exhibit a small flour mill run by steam power and in full operation; another will show several cider mills at work manufacturing the farmers' favourite beverage, which will be sold by the glass." (The Globe, Sept 1, 1879)

In 1905, the Agricultural Implements Hall was demolished to make way for the new Industrial Processes Building, built in 1906.